UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO 

EASTERN DIVISION 

AMERICAN SIGNATURE, INC., 

 Plaintiff, 

v. 

EXTREME LINEN, LLC, 

 Defendant. 

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Case No. 2:12-cv-00601 

JUDGE MARBLEY 

MAGISTRATE JUDGE ABEL 

AGREED PROTECTIVE ORDER

To facilitate full discovery in this lawsuit, while protecting the parties’ and third parties’ 

interests in confidential, trade secret or proprietary information which may be contained in 

certain documents, answers to interrogatories, requests for admissions, and other information 

otherwise discoverable under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure from the parties and/or nonparties, but which should not be made available to competitors or the public in general, by 

agreement of the parties and for good cause shown, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED and 

DECREED that: 

1. Certain documents, answers to interrogatories, depositions, pleadings, exhibits, 

and other information have been and/or may be requested during this action from the parties 

and/or non-parties and may contain confidential business information, confidential financial 

information, proprietary information, trade secrets, or other confidential information. 

2. Any party or non-party providing documents, answers to interrogatories, 

depositions, pleadings, exhibits, and other information may designate as CONFIDENTIAL any 

such documents and/or information produced in this action as “PROTECTED MATERIAL”. In 

addition, any party may also designate as CONFIDENTIAL any such documents and/or 

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information produced by a non-party in response to a subpoena, or otherwise. A party or nonparty shall designate PROTECTED MATERIAL only as to materials which that party in good 

faith believes constitute such material or matter used by it in, or pertaining to, its business, which 

matter is not generally known and which the party would normally not reveal to third parties or 

would cause third parties to maintain in confidence. PROTECTED MATERIAL shall be used 

by the parties to this action solely for the purpose of conducting this action and not for any other 

purpose whatsoever. 

PROTECTED MATERIAL

3. CONFIDENTIAL materials or information, for purposes of this Protective Order, 

shall be designated as confidential in the following manner: 

 With respect to documents and/or information produced by a party, the 

designation CONFIDENTIAL shall be affixed to each page containing any confidential 

information, except that in the case of multi-page documents bound together by staple or other 

permanent binding or electronic medium collecting confidential information (i.e. computer 

discs), the word CONFIDENTIAL need only be stamped on the first page of the document, or 

the exterior of the electronic medium, in order for the entirety of the document(s) contained 

therein to be treated as confidential. With respect to documents and/or information produced by 

a non-party, a party may designate such documents and/or information as CONFIDENTIAL by 

providing written notice to the other party of such designation. 

 4. Materials designated as CONFIDENTIAL and any copies of such information 

shall not be exhibited or disclosed by counsel for the parties and/or by any party to this action to 

any other person or entity; provided, however, that nothing herein shall prevent the exhibition of 

such documents or the information contained therein only to the following persons, who shall 

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use such confidential information solely in the prosecution or defense of this action and for no 

other purpose, business, personal, legal or otherwise: 

 (i) counsel for the parties to this action and their associates, employees, 

assistants, and vendors who are engaged in connection with, or who are making decisions with 

respect to, this action on behalf of a party; 

 (ii) the parties and their officers, directors, members, agents, employees, or 

former employees who are providing assistance to counsel in this action; 

(iii) consultants, technical experts, expert witnesses, actual fact witnesses, 

potential fact witnesses and agents involved in the prosecution or defense of this action; 

(iv) the Court and its staff; and 

 (v) court reporters, their transcribers, assistants, and employees related to their 

provision of services in connection with this action. 

 Other than persons described in paragraphs (i) through (v) above, no person shall have 

access to Confidential information. 

 5. Subject to the foregoing provisions, material designated as CONFIDENTIAL may 

be referred to in the course of depositions, or made exhibits to depositions, and the deponent, all 

counsel, and other persons present at the deposition, or who review the transcript thereof, shall 

be informed of and be bound by the terms of this Protective Order. 

6. Any party may designate as CONFIDENTIAL testimony given during a 

deposition which, in good faith, it deems confidential, provided that the portion of the transcript 

relating to such confidential information shall be marked confidential in accordance with the 

provisions of paragraph 3. Any party may designate as CONFIDENTIAL any deposition 

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testimony or deposition exhibits, by notice to all other parties, within thirty (30) days of the date 

that the deposition transcript is received. 

7. Counsel may make copies of confidential documents for experts or consultants, 

provided counsel first obtains the written agreement of each expert or consultant to be bound by 

the terms of this protective order. The requirement of obtaining such written agreement shall be 

satisfied by having each expert or consultant read, acknowledge and agree in writing to be bound 

by this Protective Order. 

 8. Every person given access to PROTECTED MATERIAL shall be advised that 

such material is being disclosed pursuant and subject to the terms of this Protective Order and 

may not be disclosed other than pursuant to the terms hereof. 

 9. Prior to filing and/or otherwise submitting PROTECTED MATERIAL to the 

Court, the party seeking to file and/or submit such material shall provide sufficient notice to the 

designating party to allow such party to seek leave of Court, upon a showing of good cause, to 

permit the filing of the subject material under seal. Where practical, a redacted version of any 

documents filed under seal will also be filed as part of the public record. 

 10. In the event additional parties join or are joined in this action, they shall not have 

access to PROTECTED MATERIAL until the newly joined party by its counsel has executed an 

agreement to be fully bound by this Protective Order. 

11. Counsel making disclosures of PROTECTED MATERIAL shall retain the 

original certificates described hereinabove, together with the full names and addresses of each 

signer. Within sixty (60) days after final resolution of this action as to all parties, counsel 

making such disclosure shall provide to counsel for the party that originally produced the 

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PROTECTED MATERIAL all signature pages and acknowledgments and the descriptions of the 

PROTECTED MATERIAL disclosed to each signer. 

12. The recipient of any PROTECTED MATERIAL shall maintain such information 

in a secure and safe area and shall exercise the same standard of due and proper care with respect 

to the storage, custody, use and/or dissemination of such information as is exercised by the 

recipient with respect to its own proprietary information. 

13. In the event that any PROTECTED MATERIAL is used in any court proceeding 

in connection with this matter, subject to the terms of paragraph 9, above, it shall not lose its 

CONFIDENTIAL status through such use, and the parties shall take all steps reasonably required 

to protect its confidentiality during such use. 

 14. Within sixty (60) days after the conclusion of this action, all PROTECTED 

MATERIAL, including all copies, extracts, summaries, portions of notes, compilations, 

photographs, or memos specifically incorporating or referencing PROTECTED MATERIAL 

shall be returned to the non-party or counsel for the party which originally produced it. The 

party or attorney returning the PROTECTED MATERIAL shall certify that all such 

PROTECTED MATERIAL has been returned to the producing party. 

15. Any party may challenge the propriety of the designation of a given document or 

information as PROTECTED MATERIAL. If any party elects to challenge the designation of 

CONFIDENTIAL of any document or information pursuant to this Protective Order, the 

challenging party shall notify the producing party of his challenge in writing. Within ten (10) 

business days of the receipt of such written notice, the producing party will either voluntarily 

remove the challenged designation or advise the challenging party that it will not remove the 

designation. If the parties cannot resolve such dispute among themselves, the challenging party 

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may seek appropriate relief from the Court. If such a motion is made, the producing party or 

non-party shall have the burden to establish that the designation is proper. A dispute as to 

designation shall not be grounds for delay of or refusal to permit discovery; provided, however, 

that until otherwise resolved by the Court, all the material as to which the dispute exists shall be 

treated as designated and shall be subject to the provisions of this Protective Order. 

16. Nothing herein shall restrict a recipient, for use in connection with this action, 

from making working copies, abstracts, digests, and analyses of PROTECTED MATERIAL or 

from preparing documents for filing such information. However, all such working copies, 

abstracts, digests, analyses and/or filings shall be deemed to have the same level of protection 

under the terms of this order as the original discovery material. Further, nothing shall restrict an 

authorized recipient from converting or translating PROTECTED MATERIAL into electronic or 

machine-readable form for incorporation into a data retrieval system used in connection with this 

action, provided that use of and access to such converted information, in whatever form stored or 

reproduced, shall be subject to the same terms and restrictions provided in this order as is the 

original documents or information. 

17. The entry of this Protective Order shall not: (a) constitute a waiver of any party’s 

right to seek at a future time relief from the Court from any or all provisions of this Protective 

Order, including the right to seek an order granting access to specific documents designated as 

PROTECTED MATERIAL to specific individuals, or for an order allowing certain documents 

designated as PROTECTED MATERIAL to be used or disclosed in a manner contrary to that 

authorized herein; or (b) be construed as an admission or agreement that any material designated 

as PROTECTED MATERIAL is properly designated as CONFIDENTIAL, or is otherwise 

entitled to any protective relief whatsoever. 

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18. Except as otherwise provided herein, inadvertent failure to designate information 

as “CONFIDENTIAL” shall not be deemed a waiver of any claim of confidentiality as to such 

matter, and the same thereafter may be corrected by prompt supplemental written notice. Upon 

receipt of the supplemental written notice, the terms of this Order shall apply and the receiving 

party shall retrieve, to the extent reasonably possible, the information and any documents 

containing the same. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

 s/Mark R. Abel 

Magistrate Judge Mark R. Abel 

APPROVED: 

/s/ Marion H. Little, Jr. 

Marion H. Little, Jr. (0042679) 

Trial Attorney 

Matthew S. Zeiger (0075117) 

ZEIGER, TIGGES & LITTLE LLP 

41 S. High Street, Suite 3500 

Columbus, OH 43215 

Tel.: (614) 365-9900 

Fax: (614) 365-7900 

little@litohio.com 

Attorneys for Plaintiff 

American Signature, Inc. 

/s/ David F. Axelrod________________ 

David F. Axelrod (0024023) 

Trial Attorney 

Michael A. Snyder (0069425) 

SHUMAKER, LOOP & KENDRICK, LLP 

2400 Huntington Center 

41 South High Street 

Columbus, Ohio 43215 

Telephone: (614) 628-4427 

Facsimile: (614) 463-1108 

Email: daxelrod@slk-law.com 

Attorney for Defendant 

Extreme Linen, LLC 

885-009:398461 

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